


Call My Name

by threewalls



Category: KAT-TUN (Band), Rescue (KAT-TUN Music Video)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - BDSM, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Community: kink_bingo, Community: reel_johnny, Consent Issues, Dubious Consent, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Genderqueer Character, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Master/Slave, Mind Control, Multi, Polyamory, Resolved Sexual Tension, Second Chances, Sharing a Bed, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-26
Updated: 2011-10-03
Packaged: 2017-10-24 02:08:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/257714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><cite>Normal people can't know what it's like, the pleasure of syncing with someone, feeling their body move as an extension of your own.</cite></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: written with thanks to: becroberts, bellemelody, katmillia, jo_laselle, solo____, and above all, to lynndyre. I couldn't have finished this without your support.

-2009-

It's a simple routine, thirty-two movements, four counts of eight. Kame watches once to count, twice to be sure, and then he turns and lines his spine up with the wall just beside the open door. Jin's too caught up in the steps, keeping track of three mens' bodies, arms, legs, and hips, to spot Kame watching from the doorway; but why risk it?

There's no one else here to catch Kame. The practice corridors empty out when Jin's practicing with his boys. Jin's talent is strong. He's got less precision control than Nakamaru, or Kame himself, but in terms of sheer power, unconscious will spilling out, Jin gives MatsuJun a run for his money. Jin's also got a reputation for pranking anyone stupid enough to not to be actively blocking him whenever he's feeling bored.

Thirty-two movements, four counts of eight. Kame can feel the echoes of the impulses Jin is sending his boys, distant urges to snap his wrists, to bend his elbows, to lift his leg to kick. It's all Kame needs to know to be able to imagine Jin, just on the other side of the wall, making those movements, following them through the merest fraction of a second before his boys mimic them exactly.

These particular men with Jin are new to Kame, but clearly not to Jin, not if he can sync with them like that. It's half practice and half a game he's playing with them. Kame caught their grins in the mirrors tiling the back wall before he turned away, Jin's smile mirrored across three faces. Normal people can't know what it's like, the pleasure of syncing with someone, feeling their body move as an extension of your own.

Kame can tell Jin's improvising, changes that probably feels random to Jin, but human beings are rarely truly random. Jin's changing the steps on the count of three or of seven, or not at all, and variations only, no substitutions of entirely different steps. That only makes it easier for Kame to follow along.

How to recognise and remember patterns is one of the first things that they are taught. It helps with their control. Kame's never killed someone by accident. Whatever else he's done, he's proud of that.

After ten complete cycles, it's starting to be impossible for Kame not to know how fast Jin's heart is beating, and soon, he knows his breathing will follow. He needs to walk away.

He needs to stop doing this.

\---

On the twenty-third beat, Jin's hand jerks right instead of left: not a movement from him, and certainly not from Ben or Jerry. And Jin always shuts the door when he's training.

Even though it takes him only five strides to reach the corridor, by the time Jin gets his head through the doorway, there's no one in sight. Again.

In his hoodie pocket, Jin's phone vibrates once. The message is short: 28:00, an address in Koto-ku, and the words LEATHER LATEX RUBBER written in English.

"Hey, guys! We're going out tonight!"


	2. Chapter 2

-1998-

The testing is boring.

One of the few things they know about how the talent works is that people who don't have it, don't have any resistance against people who do. So what happens first, right after they all get given their numbers is that they're told to line up in rows, 1-100 (Jin is first!), in the middle of the room. A stern-looking woman, old, way older than Jin's mom, anyway, walks along between their rows.

Then the fire alarm goes off.

Everyone who doesn't immediately start for the door, who is left standing where he was, eyes gone like a dead fish, gets to go home right away.

But after that, the testing is boring.

Jin goes first. The testing guys don't like him. He doesn't like them, either, even if their clothes look cool. There's a different woman in the room, who does look sort like she's Jin's mom's age, with long, dark hair and a smile that makes Jin flush and not want her to do any of the stupid, embarrassing things that the guy who isn't behind the camera is telling Jin to make the woman do.

"Anything?" he asks the woman, after Jin's had ten minutes, and three different orders.

"No," she says. "I didn't feel a thing." The guy behind the camera also shakes his head.

The guy giving all the orders tells Jin to wait outside, to send in number two, and Jin trips on nothing as he's walking back out into the hall. When you've got the talent, you've got some resistance to the others, but how much depends on strength, training and whether you're expecting some guy to be a jerk.

Jin is bored. His mom won't be back to pick him up until five. It's 10:30.

Sitting against one of the walls, there's a boy with a baseball. He's throwing it in the air and catching it in a glove. Maybe it's the baseball that catches Jin's eye, maybe it's that the boy is maybe the only kid in the room, besides Jin, who isn't watching the door to the testing room.

There's a boy with a big nose sitting next to the boy with the baseball. They came in together, almost too late, but they only met today. While baseball boy is off being tested, big nose introduces himself as Nakamaru Yuichi. He's friendlier than the baseball boy, who comes back and says nothing about how it was ("They said not to tell people who hadn't done it yet."), who only grudgingly admits that his name is Kamenashi.

"Kamenashi is too long," Jin says. He's already told both of them to call him Jin. "What can I call you?"

All Jin gets is the baseball thrown up in the air, caught like perfect clockwork.

"Ka-kun? Kame-chan? I bet turtles are slow to answer when people ask them questions, too."

Kame doesn't answer Jin. He's watching the door to the testing room now.

Jin leans sideways, the back of his head sliding on the wall behind them. "So, how was it, really?" he whispers.

"I didn't make her move," Kame says, just as quiet.

"Me, either."

That makes Kame glance across at Jin.

"I want to play baseball," he says, even quieter, like it's a secret. Which makes no sense, because everyone in the room has watched him throw his ball in the air and catch it maybe three hundred times.

"Why can't you play--?"

Kame elbows Jin in the side, and Jin never gets to ask his question.

Nakamaru has walked out of the testing room. He tries to look cool, but only gets halfway across the room before a grin breaks out across his face and he throws Jin and Kame a victory sign. He whispers that he made the woman stand on her head against the wall. Her tailored skirt had slipped down, just a little, but she'd been back on her feet before Nakamaru could see her panties. This makes him giggle in the retelling. It makes Jin frown. Kame keeps his eyes on the testing room door, only glancing away to check the path of his baseball, falling back into his glove.

Jin is bored, so Jin grabs Kame's baseball out of the air mid-flight.

"Give it back," Kame says, but Jin's already on his feet and on the other side of the room before Kame even stands up.

Everyone else in the room is watching them. They've all been sitting here for hours, doing nothing, too.

"My father gave me that," Kame says. He looks mad. Jin doesn't get why he isn't chasing Jin yet.

"You want it?" Jin says. "Come make me!"

"Give it--" Kame snaps, and just like that, Jin's arm is throwing the baseball, which lands smack dead centre in Kame's mitt. "Back."

Jin sits back down by the wall, face still red long after the old lady takes Kame back into the testing room. When Kame comes back out, he doesn't speak. He sits down in the gap between Jin and Maru, and looks at his baseball in his glove, just holds it. There's only an hour of waiting after that. It takes a long, long time.

When they read out the numbers at the end, Maru's get called out, and Kame's, and some other boys. But Jin's doesn't. The boys whose numbers get called out hug their mothers and then go stand with the mean old lady, waiting. Jin's mom hugs him, too, even though she gets to take him home. Jin spots Kame hugging his baseball mitt against his chest.

An old guy by the door tells Jin to give his number back. Jin makes him dance the Macarena. It turns out he's the big boss, and that Jin's lucky he has a sense of humour. Jin hugs his mom good-bye.

Then that's it, for all three of them. They're Johnny's.

\---

-1999-

Life in a Johnny's dormitory is like moving into a high school. They have classes together. They eat together. All the juniors under the age of twenty (which is most of them) spend what little scheduled down time they get inside the one building, over three floors. Kame has three brothers, but this is walking into an ongoing prank war on a scale that even he is unprepared for.

Things that aren't considered dangerous enough for their graduated sempai to stop (not an exhaustive list):  
* tripping over nothing  
* not being able to talk when called upon in class  
* messing up the moves during dance class  
* dancing when it's not dance class (especially uncool, out-dated dance moves)  
* making obscene gestures in front of teachers  
* uncontrollable and/or noisy gas  
* wetting oneself in public

Kame tries to stay out of it. The pranks are just stupid. What Kame hates is the horrible shivering extended moment when their sempai holds them still, when Kame's fingers and toes goes numb, and he knows that his heart is only still beating because his sempai is making it move.

One night in March, Kame gets Jin thumping on Kame's bedroom door.

"Show me how to do that thing you do," Jin says, and then, he must realise how that sounds, because he then bows his head and the demand comes out again, but a little more polite. "Nino's a jerk," Jin says. "Please teach me your trick!"

Jin can't mean how to throw a baseball. It made Kame novel at the audition, but Jin made Johnny Kitigawa dance. Jin's the legend that came out of their audition, instantly "elite", like Matsumoto Jun or Yamashita Tomohisa. Some of the boys have been here for years and the ongoing prank war proves their skill better than the twice-yearly exams. No, all Kame has a reputation for is being hard to catch off guard. He really tries to stay out of it. It's easier for Kame to keep his temper if he can avoid being _got_ ; if not, well, there are always sempai supervising the common areas. That's plenty of incentive.

Ninomiya-sempai is one of the few boys that Kame can talk baseball with, but he managed to make Kame throw a cup of soy milk at Takizawa-sempai at breakfast two days before and Kame did not enjoy being the recipient of Takizawa-sempai's disappointment.

The room's tiny, and Kame has only one chair. Jin perches on the edge of Kame's desk, kicking his feet. It turns out to be harder to describe than Kame expects, with a frown of confusion growing on Jin's face.

"Just-- argh-- just show me, ok?"

"We're not supposed to do it without supervision," Kame says.

Jin gives him a look. "I won't tell if you don't."

Jin's reputation in the juniors dormitory is for smiling his way around the rules, for pulling heroically stupid stunts, and for loyalty to his friends. Above Jin's head, on the bookshelf, there are two battered, secondhand One Piece tankubon, both borrowed from Jin, who has already figured out that Kame won't accept presents.

"Ok, fine," Kame says. "Don't make me do anything stupid."

Jin's control is like ocean waves, surging up over Kame, pressure on his chest, on his skin, and breaking against the barrier Kame imagines is there. With his eyes shut to concentrate, Kame tries to describe how it feels and what he's doing to stop it, right up until Kame can no longer talk. Until he's drowning. The tips of his fingers tingle, but it's not as bad as Kame was bracing for; the water's warm. Jin lets go almost as soon as Kame's voice stops.

"Hey, you ok?"

Kame nods in answer, because that's easier, gesturing with a hand that's somehow holding Jin's. He doesn't remember Jin doing that. Kame honestly doesn't know which of them did that.

"I thought, I mean, you don't talk a lot, anyway, so it seemed..." Jin shrugs, and just squeezes Kame's hand.

Kame's voice croaks on the first try, manages a word or two on the second. That's normal. He didn't know that last October.

"Helpful?" Kame finally manages, coughing twice, but that seems to be it. "Did that make sense?"

"Yeah, I think so. " Jin says. "Now let me try blocking you."

"What?"

Somehow, the idea of trying to control Jin, that's worse. Kame doesn't like the talent. He can understand why Jin would want to learn how to block it, to resist the other boys (their teachers). Kame pulled Jin with the talent the first day they met. By accident, and Kame didn't know what it could feel like then.

"I want to know if I've got it," Jin says, grinning and unafraid. "Don't make me do anything _too_ stupid."

It takes Kame longer to wrest Jin's control from him-- he's tentative, at least until Jin asks Kame if that's all he's got -- and it takes Jin a few tries before Kame can feel him pushing back. But weirdly, every time, the first muscles that Jin pulls back to his own control are the ones that let him smile.

Kame doesn't ask Jin what his control feels like. He's not sure he wants to know. When they stop, it's already after curfew. That's the first night that Jin stays over in Kame's room.

Kame was used to sharing with his younger brother Yuya, so sharing with Jin isn't that strange. The bed in his dormitory room _is_ slightly less unfamiliar with somebody else in it, and it's just warmer with Jin here. Maybe Kame will kick him out in April, or in May, depending on the weather. The problem he has most often is that he doesn't think that Jin is used to sharing a bed, since his favourite sleeping position is sprawled out on his front.

Sometimes Kame wakes up in the middle of the night, with Jin practically flattening him, touching chest-to-chest so that Kame doesn't know who started breathing in time with who. Kame bites his lip, the pain making him less muzzy with sleep. He wriggles a hand up to poke Jin's collarbones, and the other boy shrieks awake, arms waving as Jin tumbles off the side of the bed onto the floor.


	3. Chapter 3

-2005-

Answering Nakama-sensei's summons, Kame and Jin kneel correctly on the tatami, and wait. She looks them over, an uncharacteristically serious expression on her face. She says that she's noticed that they tend to pair off for the group exercises, supporting each other against other students-- she asks which of them is the leader, who has the overriding talent.

They both answer at the same time: "Jin."

Kame keeps his face blank; he can feel Jin looking at him.

Nakama-sensei tilts her head, her nose wrinkling for just a moment, before a blinding grin takes over. They both get dragged into a suffocating hug.

"Most boys fight when I ask them a question like that," she wails. "Never forget this precious friendship of your youth!"

Nakama-sensei is a woman, and therefore not a talent, but she's the grand-daughter of the head of one of the Tokyo families that Johnny often contracts for. When the family wants something, she takes on those Johnny selects for three months, to teach them about team work, loyalty and the importance of friendship. And street-fighting, which is in some ways just another way of moving, another set of steps with a strong emphasis on improvisation. But mostly pain.

For the first few weeks, they learnt how to throw punches, how to kick, squaring off against each other as often as they went against Nakama's grandfather's subordinates. They had bruises, then, too, but they have more bruises now that they're moving into the second stage.

Pain is a response from the nervous system, which is something like electrical wires travelling through the body. Kame's not sure he would have paid so much attention in biology and anatomy classes if the knowledge hadn't been obviously useful. Who wants to take someone over and make them do things the human body isn't designed to do?

To make someone feel pain by syncing with their electrical system, your own body needed to know what the pain felt like. The sharp stabbing pain of being punched in the kidneys, or kicked in the groin, that would be more useful than being able to induce the dull ache of muscle strain. Not that Kame couldn't do both.

Nakama-sensei is the first woman that Kame's met who made him wonder why women didn't manifest the talent. Sometimes he felt himself moving and he wasn't sure if he just wanted to do what she wanted so badly, or whether his limbs were being guided through the steps.

Kame's face flushes when she praises him. Jin has been teasing Kame about having a thing for older women, but Kame knows he doesn't really mean it. If Jin did, he wouldn't tease Kame about it in bed, where it's too easy for Kame's fingers to reach Jin's collarbones.

Jin stops staying over whenever he "falls in love", because that would just get weird and awkward. Even though they stopped dating six months ago, Yamashita-sempai still holds a grudge against Kame for stealing Jin away from him (which is stupid). At least Jin's between crushes at the moment. Kame can make sure that Jin gets to Nakama's school on time.

"Ok, ten minutes are up," Jin says, poking Kame's left shoulder where it floats exposed above the waterline. Kame has bruises down his right side, and a bump on that side of his head that's barely noticeable. The doctors said he's lucky not to have a concussion, considering the fall he took. They do get good doctors, being Johnnies.

"I haven't passed out again."

Everything's warm and fuzzy and Kame's head feels just a little too big for his skull. They get good painkillers, too.

"Time to get out of the bath," Jin says, and then his hands are under the water, under Kame's armpits. Kame stands, letting Jin lift him out.

\---

Kame meets the woman he will later call Ran on his first night at Ex.

Ex, short for the English "exchange", is a club with no fixed address. If you know the right people, you get a message on your handphone hours before an event: opening time, place, theme. Ex happens in abandoned warehouses, the bar run out of the back of three vans, the floor slick with water from being hosed down. It didn't look like much to Kame walking in, but Jin had thrown his arm across Kame's shoulders, Jin's weight walking them both forward. He had told Kame that you didn't come to Ex for the furniture. You came for the people.

Half the patrons in Ex are dressed in tight leather, or cosplay, or both. Koki swears that you can actually find women here who "get wet at the thought of syncing with hot guys like us". Kame wasn't sure whether to believe him, but in the hour since he's been here, Kame has seen five different girls being led around by a leash attached to a collar at their throats and, more to the point, at least two groups of Koreans (one all male, one all female) dancing in preternaturally perfect coordination. Maybe if a talent syncs someone here, it's just a quirky personal interest.

That's why Johnnies come here. Ex is also one of the few clubs in Tokyo that doesn't ask talents to sign a no-sync waiver at the door. (Talents don't get a choice about paying three times the already steep cover charge, but where else would they rather be than the VIP section?)

There are men who like talents here, too, or at least Jin is happily holding court back at their tables just beyond the ropes that mark off the VIP section. Jin is older than Kame. Tonight is far from Jin's first night at Ex, and the people he seems to know here aren't just Johnny's. From what Kame's seen, Jin's not had any trouble finding people to buy him drinks.

Kame's stalking the edges of the dance floor, waiting for his one beer to make him brave. Kame likes dancing. He likes feeling the music through his body. Kame knows how well he can move, but at work, that's about proficiency, not sexy. He's not used to feeling pretty like Jin does. The last time Kame confessed to someone, he was still in elementary school. When Kame gets second (and third...) glances, he has to remind himself that they're not staring in confusion, wondering how someone like him got into a club like Ex.

The girl is wearing a hat, that's what catches Kame's eye. She's all in black, black slacks, black short-sleeved blouse, black bob under her hat. Kame's wearing boot-cut jeans, a tight T-shirt with a skull screen-printed in three colours and more than six bracelets, strings of beads and charms on each wrist: an outfit with Jin-approval, even if Kame's moved beyond Jin picking half his clothes. Tonight, Jin's eyelids are outlined with metallic turquoise and he has a knotted shawl accentuating his hips. Jin's top has a cowl neck, dipping and draping over the cleavage Jin doesn't pretend to have. At least next to this girl, Kame doesn't feel ridiculously plain.

"Haven't seen you here before. Are you with them?" she asks. She means the other Johnny's.

Kame nods, his tongue feeling thick in this mouth. He thinks about the way Koki, Junno and Maru talk about girls(!), or about the crushes he's been hearing about from Jin since nearly forever. The girl looks friendly, and Kame likes that, but it's more like a feeling of relief that girls aren't actually an alien species than anything he's been expecting. He envies her the way she seems to know what she wants, nodding with a smile as she stands at the edge of the dance floor with him, still swaying with the beat. Friendly's not bad for a start.

"You move pretty well," Kame says. "Can I-- would you-- dance with me?"

The girl turns around, like she's done this before, her head tilted back over her shoulder, eyes on Kame and her arms out, palms up. Kame's been watching the dance floor. He knows what she's doing, what's being offered. Kame takes her wrists, gingerly; he's never synced someone willingly before. His thumbs find the veins on the inside of her wrists, touching pulse to pulse, until there is no difference between his and hers. Then Kame lets go, of her hands; he doesn't need to be touching her now.

Kame can feel her hands through his, the tensing muscles of her thighs and calves as she walks, but there's no resistance where he's holding onto her. The girl's body feels like welcome, step by step out onto the dance floor in time with Kame's feet, the smile on her face identical to his own.

Whenever Kame's synced with someone, whether it was another junior talent or someone they were hired to sync with, it's always been a fight. He's always been aware of a clear cut division between them, the place where the force of his will and their resistance met. Kame had thought that being welcomed in would feel like losing himself, but he's never felt more in control, never felt more certain of himself, of what he wants.

Kame wants this with her, feeling the flow of his control in the roll of her hips, her willingness in the snap of her arms, the beat thudding in time with the surge of blood in his chest. When he turns, she turns, double-sensory-vision, Kame feeling his centre of gravity in two places at once.

Kame's hard, and she's wet, and he knows, because her body is his. Kame's hard, and he's in a warehouse, rubbing against the body of a woman he's just met. He asked her to _dance_.

Kame pulls his control back, steps back to put space between them, so that when he breathes, Kame only fills his own lungs.

The girl turns herself to face him. Her cheeks are glowing, her skin is warm and shimmering lightly with sweat. She opens her mouth to speak, but her voice gives out on a whisper. The girl shrugs her shoulders, used to it, what can you do?

Kame wonders if he should offer to buy her a drink, if she'd want to use the opportunity to disappear back into the crowd, if he shouldn't leave her alone yet. He wants to hold her wrists, take her back. The desire is disorienting.

"You dance pretty well yourself," she says, finally, smiling up at him from beneath the brim of her hat. Kame grins back.

He introduces himself, asks the girl her name. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?" she asks, and it just about stops Kame's breath.

Talents, if they're strong enough, need to sync regularly to keep their control. Go too long without, and the talent starts reaching out in all sorts of unpredictable ways. Most talents contract people who theoretically know what they're getting into, and most talents give nicknames to those they do contract. Accepting the nickname is part of what makes it easier for their talent to control them, or at least that's how Takizawa-sensei explained it in class. Now that Kame's seen girls with collars around their necks, like housepets, he's less sure that's all it is.

The girl's still looking up at Kame, still smiling. She looks like a "Ran". Kame wants to call her Ran. He licks his lips.

"I-- I can't contract yet."

He can't afford to, not until he graduates. Contracts are legally binding, involving maintenance stipends as well as compulsory insurance. The more often and prolonged you sync with someone, the easier it becomes.

Kame has never thought he would ever feel like that, but he can feel himself holding back now, a rush with every pulse of his heartbeat, her heartbeat, echoing just out of time with each other, through their linked hands. Right now, that sort of easy, welcome control sounds fantastic to Kame, but he's the talent. He's the one she needs protecting from.

"That's a pity," she says.

"Soon, though. I hope."

"Maybe I'll see you around when you can." Something she sees behind Kame startles her; Kame lets go of her hands. It's only then that she takes a small step back, pivoting to turn. "I think your friend is looking for you."

It's Jin.

And he has his hands out to catch Kame when Kame stumbles forward.

Five minutes ago, Kame moved four feet like he owned them. He hasn't been this wrung out from syncing in years, and, at the end, Kame doesn't know what happened there. He thinks it'll be easier to calm down next to Jin, whose heart isn't thudding like a rabbit's in his chest. Jin's arms are strong, wrapped around Kame's back. His hair smells like Kame's shampoo.

" 'm not drunk."

"No," Jin says, and he sounds like he's trying not to snicker. "But you must have gone pretty deep with her."

Kame finds himself staring at the dark, crooked bow of Jin's lips, stopping himself just in time from asking Jin to dance. They're both talents; it couldn't work the same way. But there's still something fierce and consuming in Kame that wants to be back on the dance floor right now, moving someone's body in time with the beat. To find out if he _could_ move Jin, if he just pushed hard enough.

Jin's heartbeat is familiar. Too familiar.

Kame pulls away, puts one foot in front of the other. The girl wanted to contract; Kame hopes she isn't watching him.

Kame has waited years to like girls with the sort of confident enthusiasm that Jin brings to liking guys, but he's still confused. Kame thinks that the girl's eyes were brown, maybe, and that he wouldn't be able to tell anyone what her cup size was. He thinks about the joyful flexibility in the girl's legs and the fine points of articulation in Jin's hands, and realises that he's getting hard again, just staring at the pulse point in Jin's wrists.

"Kame?"

Kame takes Jin's outstretched hand, linking their fingers, and pulling Jin away from the dance floor. Jin likes guys, but he deserves better than confused.

"Jin, let me buy you a drink."

\---

Kame tries beer, and wine, and vodka and tequila with salt and lime. He downs any brightly coloured shot placed in front of them, sliding further and further against Jin. He smiles when Jin wraps an arm around Kame's shoulders, and says yes to whiskey for the next round and drinks most of the glass of orange juice Jin orders to share.

Kame balances with a hand on Jin's thigh, leaning in to say: "when can we go home?", but not in the whisper Kame probably thought he'd used.

Ryo and Pi both elbow Yuu, who has some talent but never got into Johnny's, and who has only heard about Jin and Kame second-hand. Some days, Jin thinks that the only two people in the world who don't think he and Kame have some on-again-off-again tumultuous passion are him and Kame.

"I'm not sure we should be letting Jinnifer take Kamenashi home," Ryo says. "What do you think, Pi?"

"We do have to look out for our kouhai's virtue."

"Fuck you both," Jin says, with feeling.

"I don't think the tables are sturdy enough here," Yuu says, and he, Pi and Ryo all clink shots and down them.

Jin flips Pi the bird, and reaches out to knock Yuu sideways with his hip, a hint to get up so that Jin can walk Kame around the tables. He's glad Kame's so wasted that Jin doesn't have to explain that this is just how his friends are, that this means they _like_ Kame.

Jin's always stayed friends with all his exes, even Ryo, who Jin had broken up with because Ryo started telling people he was only making out with Jin because Jin was the girliest boy in the dormitory. Not that Ryo and Pi still lived in the dormitory. They're younger than Jin, but they'd both graduated last year.

The taxi-driver thinks Jin is Kame's girlfriend, which makes everything easier. Kame's not a handsy drunk, but he does want to cuddle up to Jin in the back seat. They're allowed out to hit the clubs, though they're not supposed to cause incidents.

Kame makes it all the way home, all the way up in the elevator, and Jin thinks he may just sleep it off until they get to Kame's dormitory corridor. They end up spending almost an hour, sitting on the floor in the communal bathroom, just managing to fit together sitting on the floor in a toilet cubicle. Jin rubs Kame's back through the shakes and heaves, keeps Kame's hair out of his eyes and out of his mouth.

"I'm never drinking again."

Jin laughs.

"And I hate you," Kame says, giggling into Jin's chest. "You are terrible, letting me drink that much."

"It's a rite of passage."

"I'm sorry. For ruining your evening."

"Don't worry about it," Jin says. Kame's hair is oily to the touch, sweat from dancing. He'll want to shower, but in the morning will be safer.

Jin gets Kame a glass of water, standing by the sink while Kame brushes his teeth -- twice-- and then he helps Kame back down the corridor to his room. Kame whispers his door code to Jin, lips brushing Jin's ear, still so out of it that he forgets that he told Jin years ago.

Jin deposits Kame on his bed, finding the trash bin and moving it near the head of the bed. Jin throws Kame a set of pyjamas, turning and knocking the drawer he'd got them from shut with his hip. Kame gets his T-shirt and jeans off by himself, but Jin has to sit on the side of the bed and help with Kame's accessories, untangling their clasps.

"Jin...?"

"Yeah?"

"When you sync with the guys you date, how does it--?"

"I don't," Jin says, so abruptly that Kame pulls back into his quilt.

Jin feels like an idiot. Kame's still drunk, over-tired and confused. He's asking because he's never danced with a girl like that, not because he's somehow figured out something about Jin that Jin hasn't told anybody. It's not Kame's fault that he thinks he and Jin have more in common than they do.

"It's not my thing. I mean, I flirt a lot, but most of the guys I really like, they're talents like us, so..." Jin trails off.

Kame nods, and holds out his other wrist, for Jin to start on those bracelets.

"Other people do. I think Uchi has, if you wanted to talk to someone."

Jin thinks Ueda does, too, or at least, Ueda disappears fast whenever they hit Ex. But Ueda doesn't talk to anyone, and the last time Kame tried to prank him, Ueda punched Kame in the face. Not that Jin really wants to send Kame to talk to Uchi, because he would just try to sidle into Kame's pants.

Kame is frowning in concentration. "But if you don't-- why do you like going to Ex so much?" He asks.

"I like going somewhere I can dress up, and have pretty men call me honey."

"Pretty Honey Jin." Kame giggles.

"You are _so_ drunk."

"Yep!"

Jin pushes on Kame's shoulder to get him to lie down. Kame flops down on his back, and then rolls onto his side, bony knee colliding with Jin's ass. He looks adorable, so Jin forgives him, reaching down to brush Kame's bangs out of his eyes.

"Jin, I hope we graduate soon."

"So you can buy a bigger bed?"

"Ran wanted to contract."

Kame's closed his eyes. That's good. Jin's not sure what his expression looks like right now.

"Ran?"

"I want to call her Ran."

Ok. The girl. Fuck, Jin, who else would Kame be talking about but the girl?

"She seemed... nice." Not Jin's type, not what he would have expected for Kame, but if Kame already has a name picked out for her, well. "Sweet dreams. Remember to puke in the bin, ok, Kame?"

"Yes, Mama. Good night!"

Jin flicks the light-switch off and shuts Kame's door behind him. He pushes on the door, just to make sure it's locked.

Jin wanted Kame to come out to Ex. He told Kame that he would be knocking them away with a stick. First night out. Go Kame.

Down the hall, Jin gets the door code to his own bedroom wrong three times, and has to wake up the duty sempai to get Koyama to let him in.


	4. Chapter 4

-2005-

Back when Pi graduated, Jin spent so many nights in the house NEWS got together (especially if you include the time after he started sleeping on their couch inside of in Pi's room), it was as if Jin had moved out himself. The food they got was so much better than the stuff in the dormitory. When Jin stopped staying out, he started keeping Kame up at night, talking about what kind of curtains they were going to have, the rich rose coloured wallpaper and the dogs they were going to buy.

"We have to graduate first, Jin," Kame would say, usually just before he told Jin to just sleep already. When they were curled up like that, he didn't talk about that girl, or about contracts; Jin didn't ask if Kame was still thinking about her. It was bad enough sitting next to Kame at Ex, watching him scan the crowd.

After what happens with Uchi, Kame stops hitting Ex. Jin will come back, maybe after three or four, and have to drag Kame out of the practice rooms. And even then, Kame will lie there behind Jin, tense as a board.

And then Kame graduates, and Jin stops being sure that Kame sleeps at all.

Unlike Pi, Kame doesn't move out when he graduates. When he graduates BY HIMSELF, which starts all sorts of rumours that their group is going to be broken up.

Pi's group have been in limbo since Uchi left that girl in intensive care (they've all heard it was an accident; they all know not to have "accidents" like that). Pi's strong. Pi's one of their stars, too good to be wasted, but too young to be sent out solo. Kame's a fantastic mimic. Put them together and Pi's got twice the reach. They're setting all kinds of records.

Jin doesn't blame Pi. He knows he shouldn't blame Kame. If Kame apologised, and hung out a bit more, maybe Jin would forgive him.

The door opens, light spilling in from the corridor. Jin sits up, too quickly, blood rushing to his head. Kame's loosening his tie with one hand even as he's pushing the door all the way open.

"Kame?"

"Wha-- Jin? What are you doing in here?"

"I'm waiting for you."

"This isn't your room," Kame says. "Look, I feel like I've made half of the country dance in time these last three months. Get out."

"No."

Jin's been sleeping in Kame's room for the past three weeks. This is the first time that Kame's come home. They're going to talk. Jin's waited too long for this. Just because Kame's graduated, it doesn't mean that Jin isn't stronger than him. Jin reaches out with his talent, just to make Kame sit still.

Kame goes crazy.

He doesn't just block, and reach around Jin to hold him instead. Kame swings out with his fists, rushing Jin and tumbling them both out into the corridor. Jin tastes blood, his teeth splitting his lip when his head hits the floor.

Kame doesn't let up. He's surprisingly tough for someone who looks like he hasn't slept in days. And he's stronger than Jin expects. Kame's been syncing who knows how many people, people who'd want to kill him, and Jin's still practicing with Juniors. Whatever, Jin will show him who's the strongest.

There's commotion in the corridor, but Jin's too busy grappling with Kame to see what it is-- Kame's bony knees fucking hurt-- and then he can feel it, the beat, Nakamaru.

Everything.

Stops.

Maru's someone that Jin should be able to beat, except for one advantage: Maru can beat-box. He can set Jin's and Kame's heart-beats and breath to a rhythm he doesn't have to share, and he can call out orders at the same time. Jin doesn't have the patience for that kind of work, and well, he's strong enough that he doesn't have to.

The other reason it works is because Jin doesn't fight Maru, not once he figures out what's going on. Maru's their leader. Ueda's older, but he'd rather be watching fairies. Maru and Kame are the only ones who'd even want to be in charge, and everyone knows mimics are better as right hands, not leaders.

"Gonna let you two go now," Maru says, followed by some scratches, squeaks and counting backwards from three. "Zero. Be good."

Kame picks himself up, brushes off his pants and strides down the corridor back to his room. He doesn't look at anyone in the crowd gathered. He doesn't look back.

Jin doesn't catch him, but that doesn't matter. Kame's ditched his jacket, but hasn't changed the door code. Jin gets Kame's balled-up tie smack in the face.

"I should have never told you my door code. I don't want you sleeping here, Jin."

"I won't sleep here without you, promise." Jin holds up his pinky, but Kame just glares. "But I never see you anymore, Kame. I-- I miss you."

Kame rubs his hand over his face. "Ok, shut the door," he says. "I'm not having this discussion where everyone can hear."

If Kame were angry with Jin, it would be one thing, but he just seems tired. Jin's not really angry about the money, that Kame's getting paid in a month what Jin gets in a year. Jin's angry because he's scared. Kame's lost so much weight since he graduated that Jin wants to wrap Kame up in his arms and never let go.

"I don't want you sleeping here again, Jin."

"It was a stupid fight," Jin says, bowing, eyes on his shoes. "I'm sorry."

"This isn't about the fight. This is my room. Not yours. Not ours."

Jin steps forward, and Kame steps back. It's now or never, a tiny room, and Kame freezes when Jin's lips touch his, freezes for just a moment, and then he's gripping Jin's upper arms and holding Jin a foot away from him.

"I don't want you sleeping here again," Kame says, like they didn't just kiss. Jin hates the smile Kame is giving him, like he's supposed to agree that this is all ok. "I've graduated. I'm supposed to be looking for people to contract now. We're too old for sleepovers."

"Kame--"

"Just go sleep. In your own room. Please, Jin."

"I'll go if you promise me, you'll actually sleep.

"I promise."

Maru's waiting outside, trying to look there's any other reason why he's loitering there after curfew.

"We made up," Jin says. The smile hurts Jin's face, but it means Maru won't go ask Kame what happened. "No more fighting in the corridors, Nakamarad."

Jin's bed is cold, and all his pillow smells like is laundry.

\---

-2006-

Just after Kame's birthday, the directive comes down from Johnny himself: they're going to graduate. No one thought they would; a group's supposed to have talents that match up. They're supposed to sync. They managed it maybe twenty times in the five years they trained as a unit.

According to Junno, who seems to think that their lives are video games, Jin's their tank, Kame's support magic (red or green, whatever that means), Koki's white magic (pain relief and psychic tourniquets) and Junno's a knight/technologist. Ueda's black magic, because honestly, no one's sure what Ueda can do, but there are always bodies on floor that no one else claims. Nakamaru's their sniper/strategist. He and Koki are the only two who can hold someone safely without having to sync them, and Koki's their medic.

Kame's supposed to let Jin sync him first, let Jin have the lead, the way he had to let Yamapi have the lead, his talent in harmony. When they're on a job, he's professional. When they're not, Kame's... not.

Nakamaru tries to separate them when they're off-call, but the apartment their group gets is just a smaller cosmos of the dormitory. It's half of one floor of a building custom-built for talents: six bedrooms, two bathrooms, communal kitchens/living/dining.

Kame hates someone else taking control of him. He follows orders. He respects Nakamaru. He respects his sempai. But Kame hates having the choice taken away from him, that numbness. At least Yamapi didn't expect Kame to _like_ it.

He hates that Jin doesn't understand why Kame hates it, that Kame hates syncing and not Jin. The way Jin sulks and mopes and picks fights with Kame. At least where Kame has bruises, he's not numb.

Nakamaru warns them. Takizawa-sempai warns them. Takuya-sempai warns them, both, separately, and Kame always thought that would be the most humiliating experience he could imagine. He apologises, to each of them. He promises himself not to lose his temper with Jin, not again.

In August, after a mission that forces them to stay awake and active for twenty-four hours straight, Kame and Jin get called up before Johnny. An American associate has proposed an exchange, one of Johnny's best and brightest for one of his.

"YOU two decide who goes. I want an unanimous answer."

Their first answer is the same: "Jin."

"I didn't make him!" Jin starts.

"Jin should go. His English skills are superior," Kame says. "If I might put myself forward for the Yokohama operation, perhaps with Tanaka acting in support..."

Twenty minutes later, stepping out of the elevator, Jin says: "Um, uh. Thanks. I'll write."

"Ok," Kame says, arms crossed behind his back, holding onto his own wrists so tight that he leaves marks.


	5. Chapter 5

Jin meets Sasha in LA. She has red-brown skin and blonde streaks through thick hair that reaches past her shoulders in waves. She laughs deep in her throat when Jin tries to compliment her eyes with the pigeon Spanish Yuu has taught him. Jin's English is better than Sasha's Japanese, but that's not a problem when Sasha is the one putting Jin's hands on her hips, the one making Jin feel it, moving to the beat with her.

Sasha dances because she loves it, not just because it's how she makes her living. In America, women can sync (which makes Jin wonder, mostly about his mom, and maybe Mary). Sasha's a friend of a friend of one of the guys Jin's working with over here. She's an independent contractor, not company, but never worked for any of their rivals. Jin finds that out three weeks after he's met her, when Joey takes him aside to tell Jin that Sasha may break his heart, but she won't get Jin in trouble with the bosses. By that point, Jin's ready to say he doesn't care what the bosses think.

Jin's not used to falling for women like this. He avoids Sasha, and all the clubs, for a week. He almost buckles and calls Kame, but Jin doesn't want this to be the first thing they'll talk about since he left. He thinks he knows what Kame would say anyway, imagining Kame's voice soft in his ear, rambling but fond, makes Jin feel better.

Sasha asks where he's been, if he's had a job, that she missed Jin.

The truth is, Jin's not used to falling for anyone like this. Sasha lets Jin buy her drinks, but she buys him nail polish and takes him outlet mall shopping. Sometimes they dance, and sometimes they talk. She's seen pictures of Reio and Jin's seen pictures of her sister. They swap phone numbers and stay up until sunrise, talking about hot oil conditioners, yoga poses and the dreams too fragile to talk about while the sun's out.

The Friday before Halloween, Jin dresses up like a pirate and Sasha dresses up like a police officer. Pirates scowl, but Jin can't stop grinning. He's wearing her hand-cuffs like bracelets, bound wrists up behind her neck, while Sasha grinds forward, strong thighs braced between Jin's legs. Sasha finally kisses him, deep, wet and dirty.

And then, she pulls away, dipping and ducking out of the arc of the cuffs. Jin's English is good enough to read her lips when Sasha mouths: "we need to talk."

"Look, ok, I think you're sweet, Jin, but I promised myself I wouldn't get involved with any more guys who push."

"But-- so do you." Jin hasn't worked with Sasha, but he's never made a secret of what he can do.

"Yeah, and that's what I like. I want to know it's me pushing you, not you pushing me to push you."

"I didn't."

"Jin, you're doing it right now. God, it's even easier to feel without the beat. Can't you feel yourself reaching out?"

Sasha's upset, speaking fast. Jin wants to calm her down, apologise, but he's not sure he understands. Jin loves dancing with Sasha, her confidence, her moves, the way she makes him feel. He wants her, wants Sasha to want him-- his pirate pants are loose enough that that can't be a surprise.

"Don't-- didn't you want to kiss me?" Jin asks.

"Oh, baby, I want to do a lot more than kiss you."

Sasha's still got a grip on the chains linking the cuffs. She's biting her lip.

"I know I'm strong," Jin says. "But I am not trying to push you. I want-- I want what you said you want."

"Honey, I am done with men who can't ask for what they want."

"Push me," Jin says, blood rushing to his face, rushing to other places, already out of his control. "Please."

Sasha nods, decisive, and Jin releases a breath he hadn't realised he was holding.

She doesn't undo the hand-cuffs until she needs to, to strip Jin of his jacket and shirts. Her bed's a king, the sheets smooth under Jin's back. Sasha rides him, and nothing's weird, nothing's confusing. Jin doesn't have to think.

"Let go, let me in."

Jin loves it. It's not just that she's calling all the shots, her weight over him holding Jin steady, pressing the crossed junction of Jin's wrists above his head. It's Jin's hips moving just the way Sasha likes, a wicked smile curving on her full lips. "Yeah, good boy, mm-hmm, oh!"

He's hard, so hard, and he can't come, can only move, muscles straining to match her own sinuous moves.

"Shh, shh, baby. The wait'll be worth it," she says, when he starts sobbing, long past please. He can't, can't, can't until she does, and she's holding him tight, tight circles of her hips, so close-- he wants-- he needs--

It comes back to him how to breathe on his own long before he remembers his own name. Sasha's sitting up against the headboard wearing just the undershirt from her police uniform, stretching over her breasts. Jin's head is in her lap, and her hand is in his hair.

Jin helps Sasha cook breakfast the next morning, cutting whatever she puts in front of him, supervising her toaster. The sun's warm through her kitchen windows. He reaches under the table, toes seeking the arch of her foot. Sasha moves her foot away.

"Ok, so, Jin, you know I like you, but..."

Jin swallows, sips his juice to rinse his mouth. "At the end, right?"

"Mm-hmm."

"I didn't mean to."

"Baby, I guessed that." Sasha reaches across the table, taking Jin's hand in hers. Jin has a sudden shocking memory of Kame doing the same thing; he looks at his plate, not trusting his face. "You were gorgeous," Sasha says. "The way you let me in. I want to keep trying, you and me-- if you want?"

Jin clutches Sasha's hand like a lifeline.

He learns more with Sasha than he thinks he ever did at Johnny's. When they talk, they talk about the talent, about pushing, about how to make it work, how to turn it off. Jin gets better, Sasha can push him farther without Jin accidentally hijacking her hold, but the sex gets worse. They stop talking about Armani and Prada, and Jin finds shopping bags in Sasha's hall from trips he never heard about.

At Thanksgiving, at Sasha's parents, Jin catches Sasha dancing with another guy, just a friend, a friend of the family, and a guy who can't push back. She looks so happy, it hurts.

The first week of December, Jin joins in on a job that takes him up to San Francisco for a week. After celebratory sake and whiskey, Jin drunk-dials Pi, who hangs up on him even though it's a quite reasonable time in Tokyo. He doesn't think to check-in with Sasha until the weekend. He apologises, but she's not upset. Sasha says she's a not a girl who can't give her guy space. Jin remembers sleeping in Kame's room for three weeks straight.

For Christmas, Jin gets a sweater with lurex accents, a hug goodbye and good luck, and a letter from management saying that his group will be visiting New York on business in the new year.

-2007-

The trick about hotels is to look as though you know exactly what you're doing and you're totally supposed to be there. No one stops Jin as he walks through the lobby, straight through to the lifts, and up to the fourteenth floor.

It helps that it's two in the morning and the lobby's deserted. Jin got lost on the way from JFK to the hotel, which looked close enough on a street map that Jin thought he could walk.

The company notified him of the dates and which hotel. Maru told Jin about the view from the fourteenth floor in the email he sent after they'd all checked in on Tuesday. He also sent Jin the number of his US mobile phone, which Jin has written down somewhere in his lyrics notebook. That's plan B.

Jin shuffles along the corridor, stopping in front of every door and shutting his eyes to concentrate. He's gone all the way down one wing, back past the lifts and half way down the other side when he stops.

This one, Jin thinks, and grins, almost giggles because, shit, it worked, and it's close on three (though it's only midnight in LA) and he's been in transit for more than twelve hours, running on airplane peanuts and airplane coffee.

Jin hopes, and knocks.

And knocks again, when nothing happens, because he was so sure. He hears rustling then.

Kame answers the door in an old, loose pink T-shirt and black boxer shorts. The neck of the T-shirt is stretched, sliding down on one side to show the exposed curve of Kame's shoulder. His hair's shorter. Even sleep mussed, it doesn't reach Kame's shoulders any more.

"Um," Jin says.

Kame blinks at him, reaching up to rub his eyes. "Jin?"

Jin swallows, nods. "Yeah."

Jin has not booked a hotel room. Jin has spent more money on his flights across the country than he's spent the entire four months he's been in the US, telling himself that it'd be worth it. It had to be.

Jin opens his mouth, but no words come out. He doesn't want to fuck this up. But then Kame nods, as though Jin really did say something, and he turns in the doorway, walking back into his hotel room.

"Don't forget to lock the door," Kame says, and that's all the invitation Jin needs.

The bed's a double, which makes him pause, but even though Kame's got the room to himself, he's only rumpled one side of the bed. The left, just like the old days.

In the hotel bathroom, Jin digs out his make-up bag and scrubs off the eyeliner, mascara and the lip-gloss he spent fifteen minutes perfecting in an airport washroom, moisturises and brushes his teeth. His pyjamas are black, a matched set, with satin ribbon trim around the deep v-neck of the top. He's not aiming for sexy right now.

Jin shuts off the bathroom light before he opens the door. It turns out he shouldn't have bothered, because Kame left the bedside lamp on on the side of the bed that Kame isn't. He's even turned down the covers on Jin's side of the bed. Jin slips under the sheets, flicks off the light and tries to sleep.

It's a double, but it might as well be a two twins and three feet of space between them. It feels nothing like the old days, not at all, because they're halfway across the world from Tokyo and Kame has rolled onto his side, curling up with his arm under _his_ pillow, instead of under Jin's.

He can hear Kame breathing, shallow and uneven. Jin can almost feel the tension in the other man's body mirroring his own, though that could be wishful thinking.

Jin tries to sleep. The room looked dark when he turned the light off, but now Jin can see light creeping around the edges of the curtains. According to Jin's watch, it's four-thirty in the afternoon in Tokyo.

Kame turns over, fingers touching Jin's arm, groping down to his wrist, linking his fingers through Jin's.

"Jin," he says. "We can talk in the morning. Go to sleep."

\---

Kame wakes up very warm and a little sweaty, with Jin's head on his shoulder and their arms and legs tangled together. It's nice. It's also confusing. If Kame thinks about it, it becomes more confusing, so he doesn't think about it yet.

Jin smells like he could use a shower, but so does Kame. It's still nice. Familiar. Kame wriggles a hand around to get a grip on Jin's shoulder.

"Jin. Jin, we have to get up."

Jin's body goes tense in Kame's arms, too quickly, so that Kame knows that Jin has been awake for a while. Not moving, for a while, not rubbing against Kame what Kame can feel poking against his thigh.

"Do you want the first shower?" Kame asks, because it's the least confusing question he can think of. "I take longer to get ready than I used to."

"I probably take less," Jin says, peeking up from Kame's neck. "Except, I guess, my hair."

"Less than an hour?" Kame asks. "I don't want to miss breakfast."

"Yeah, less than an hour. I've streamlined my routine _a lot_ over here."

Jin's hair is loose and a mess. It looks like he hasn't cut it since he left last September. But when he smiles, his smile is the only thing Kame can see.

"Um-- Kame?"

"Yeah?"

"I can't shower until you let go."

Kame remakes their bed while Jin showers. He doesn't want housekeeping talking, and it gives Kame something to do that isn't agonising between three T-shirts, two cardigans and four pairs of jeans, all of which go with the boots he brought that have the most heel. Jin would laugh; Jin will laugh when Kame tells him about it.

Jin sticks his head out of the bathroom, hair hanging in damp tendrils around his face and with the collar of the white, plush bathrobe framing Jin's bare collarbones.

"Shower's free."

Kame finds his travel hair-drier for Jin, and then strips efficiently, ducking into the shower cubicle behind the frosted glass door. He shampoos his hair, rinses, conditions and scrubs shower gel over his body and all four limbs. When he hears the hair-drier turn off, he knows that he's just stalling for time.

Kame steps out of the shower, the bathmat slipping under his foot, and he ends up tumbling into Jin's arms. He can't feel Jin's body the way he could when they were still in bed-- the robe's too thick-- but Kame can feel Jin's hands cool on the shower-heated skin of Kame's back.

Jin lifts up his hands; Kame doesn't let go of his grip on the collar of Jin's bathrobe.

"Kame?" Jin sounds like he's trying to sound casual. He doesn't.

"Did I make you drop something?"

"Just eye cream. It's-- Kame--?"

"You make me so confused," Kame says. Four months of always turning around, ready to tell a story, share a joke with someone who wasn't there, sleeping with his own arms wrapped tight around himself, Kame wishes that all of what he feels, all of what he wants were so harmless.

"I've missed you," Kame starts again, but doesn't know how to explain.

"I missed you, too," Jin says. "But, yeah, this is-- this is really mixed messages for me, Kame."

Kame leans in, bracing his weight against Jin, pushing Jin's back up against the bathroom tiles. He licks his lips.

"Can I--?" Kame asks.

"Yes, fuck, yes."

Kame was thinking about how kisses look, how they're supposed to go, but then Jin opens his mouth, warm, wet and welcoming, and Kame doesn't have to think about faking this. He wants to be licking in, wants to be sucking on Jin's lower lip, wants to be rocking his hips against Jin's. He wants Jin's hands on his arse, pulling Kame close and tight against him. Kame wants to pick open the knot to Jin's bathrobe with his fingers, pushing up close between Jin's parted legs, water from Kame's shower dripping down his body and dampening Jin's boxer shorts.

"Sorry," Kame says, pulling back. Words are difficult to string together; he's out of breath. He can sense Jin's heartbeat racing where they're pressed chest to chest, but they're not in time. He can do this. He can keep it from getting weird.

"What?"

Jin's lips look dark and swollen. Distracting. Just kissing, and it leaves Kame like this.

"It's been... a while for me. With this... kind of thing. Stop being distracting."

Jin's lips curve.

"You're not enjoying this," Kame says, confused because Jin looks happy, but he's not-- Kame rolls his hips to prove his point, his hands slid between the robe and the small of Jin's back.

"I _am_ enjoying this," Jin says, sending the hip-roll right back. "If you mean I'm not getting hard, I, uh, need a little more time. I took care of myself in the shower."

His cheeks are pink, and, somehow, Jin makes looking down at Kame look shy. Kame's never noticed how long Jin's eyelashes are. He wants to keep kissing Jin.

"Hey, if I'd had any idea this was coming, I--"

Someone thumps on the hotel room door and they both freeze, looking at the closed, but unlocked, bathroom door. It's Nakamaru, shouting through that they're all going down to breakfast now.

"That means no more interruptions," Jin says.

"That means we have five minutes to get dressed," Kame says, and then has a terrible thought. "Unless you aren't staying tonight?"

"Do you want me to stay?"

"Yeah."

"Then, yeah," Jin says, "I can stay."

It takes them twenty minutes to get down to breakfast, including the best elevator ride of Kame's life, with Jin's hand in his, tucked into one of the pockets of Kame's coat.


	6. Chapter 6

-2007-

That night, they both shower and then brush their teeth. When Kame comes out of the bathroom, Jin's lying in bed with the covers up to his neck and his pyjamas on the floor. Jin's smile is tentative, but he isn't shy about watching Kame strip.

Kame starts with kissing. Kissing is easy. Familiar. Kissing is as good as it was that morning, and even better when he lies on top of Jin, pinning him down.

It's good. It's normal. It's more fun than trying this out with Yamapi was. Even if Kame's not more than half-hard, it's thrilling how much Jin likes what he's doing, his palms moving slick over Kame's back, all the pretty noises he makes when Kame kisses down the side of Jin's neck.

"Kame. Ka-- Kazuya!" Jin calls out Kame's name three times before Kame braces himself up to have a good view of Jin's face in the glow of the one bedside lamp.

"It's ok," Jin says, though he sounds too nervous for Kame to believe that. "If you don't know what to do with a guy, it's ok."

Kame doesn't know how to explain that he tried things out with one of Jin's exes. It was just the once and they didn't even get undressed, Yamapi coming sticky all over Kame's hand down his pants. This doesn't seem the time. This is already better than that.

"It's not that," Kame says. "I'm just used to syncing when I'm with someone like this."

Jin goes very stiff under Kame, very still, and Kame's suddenly afraid, words tumbling out almost immediately, before he can think, that he's not asking Jin to do that, that Kame's not some kind of pervert weirdo, really, it's just he's used to (Ran) girls who like that sort of thing.

"Do you want to?" Jin asks. He's looking at Kame with one eye with the rest of his bright, bright red face turned into the pillow.

Ok, maybe Kame is a pervert-weirdo, because he's thought about this, about syncing Jin so many times that the urge to try wells up so fast that Kame has to bite his lip to clear his head.

"We're both talents, Jin."

"Maybe we could, like, roleplay. Like, you tell me what to do, what you would be making me do, and I'll do it."

Kame doesn't know why Jin would offer, but it's too tempting an offer for him to resist. Kame graduated over a year ago. His control should be good enough for this.

"Ok," Kame says. "Jin: I make you put your arms back around me and we kiss more."

Next, Kame tells Jin to spread his legs wider. Kame likes lying on top of Jin, likes the almost co-ordinated rhythm of their bodies moving against each other, the touch of Jin's skin, the soft, open wetness of Jin's mouth.

"I make you give me your hands," Kame says, and Jin does that, grinning so pretty up at him, wriggling under Kame's weight, hard; they both are, bellies slick with more than sweat.

Kame keeps checking Jin's eyes, but they don't go glassy and unfocused, no matter how still Jin holds himself, when his body only rolls with Kame's thrusts.

"I put our arms above our heads."

They have to shift diagonally on the bed to fit. Kame touches his fingers to Jin's wrists, just testing the speed of Jin's pulse. Experience has taught Kame that he can dip a little, can match someone's pulse by mimicking, borrowing their pulse for his, not replacing theirs. Kame has enough control to stay this side of the line, and anyway, Jin's too strong a talent for Kame not to hit Jin blocking him if he so much as tried to sync. Mimicking Jin's pulse, it's just adding to the illusion.

Kame's never been this turned on with someone else. Even with Ran, who lets him go further than any girl Kame has ever danced with, Kame always has to hold himself back, hold back wanting too much, but this is just pretend.

"Call my name," Kame says, and Jin echoes: "Call my name," his voice a rough whisper, a sync voice, Kame's words, not Kame's order. His eyes are still lucid, still moving, still looking right at Kame. Kame, who is still holding Jin's wrists, and their hearts are beating in time, Jin's chest rising to meet Kame's with every breath.

Kame's synced Jin. Jin. It shouldn't be possible. Kame shouldn't be able to-- not breath and blood, not by accident, not Jin.

Kame pulls back, slowly, as slow and gentle as he would with Ran. Cutting control when he went so deep before Jin's body knows it's got control back is just as damaging as forcing his way in.

His erection is gone, even if Jin's is still there if lessening. At least that means they're out of sync. Kame feels sick.

The first noise that comes out of Jin's throat is a croak.

"I'm sorry," Kame says. He doesn't know what else to say, what could be enough. He stopped, it was an accident, he's so, so sorry.

Kame asks if he can get Jin some water. Jin nods, or maybe Kame just hopes he does. The water will help Jin speak again.

Jin just stares at the water glass in Kame's hand. Kame has to get back onto the bed, and help Jin sit up before he'll drink any.

When the water's all gone, Kame puts the glass down on the bedside table. Jin hasn't moved off him.

"Do you-- do you want me to get Nakamaru?"

Jin tries to roll over into Kame's lap. Kame finds this confusing, ready to sleep in the bath, or even the corridor, but he's not controlling Jin, so he lets Jin climb him, lets him nuzzle Kame for cuddles.

They leave tomorrow, and Kame will have two months to improve his control. This won't happen again.

\---

It's only Junno and Maru who pick Jin up from Narita-- the group's in the middle of an operation-- but Maru promises that everyone will be there when they get Jin home.

Kame, Ueda and Koki are sitting around their dining table, currently expanded to seat its maximum of twelve, wine glasses and beer bottles spread around the places. There are also four girls and a guy, all normal, and the one sitting next to Kame is that girl, Ran, from Kame's first night at Ex, all those years ago.

Kame stands, and so does Ran. And so does the girl on Kame's other side, longer hair than Ran. New girl glares at Jin. Maybe it would be less shocking if all three hadn't stood up at exactly the same time, in exactly the same way.

Maybe not, since Jin could feel it, too, the pull to push back his chair, to stand, even though he was already standing. Kame doesn't turn away fast enough to cover the shock that ripples across his face. Probably didn't expect Jin to be open, to be looking for it.

Kame and his girls disappear into the kitchen, sounds of running water and, soon, smells of meat sauce, garlic, tomato.

Jin's introduced to Ueda and Nakamaru's girls and Junno's boy. Koki shrugs, says he's not ready to settle down.

"The other two, they're Kame's," Maru says. "I guess he'll introduce when they come back with the food."

"Two already, what a stud."

"Ah, well, I think he met, uh--"

"Ran?"

"Oh, he's already told you about her. I think they met a couple of years back. Quite romantic."

"Yeah," Jin says.

Kame comes back with bowls of pasta marinara, placing the first in front of Jin with a nervous smile. It was Jin's favourite six months ago. Right now, what he really misses is something Japanese. With six hands, Kame distributes the bowls with efficiency.

Kame didn't write, not for the two months they've been apart, but Jin didn't write for the first four. Body language's always been better for them, Jin's lips and the quirks of Kame's eyebrows, but this Kame's doesn't move like the one Jin knows. This Kame doesn't smile like the one Jin knows.

You contract to stop your talent going nuts between jobs, but that's not what Kame's doing with them. He's had two months, and Jin can see how much he's worked with them, the way he's still working them, all the casual touches, all the casual commands, like whispers just out of Jin's hearing. Jin's not watching the results of two months of incidental contact. It's like Kame's still in the honeymoon phase and trying (and failing) to cover that fact.

Jin remembers the way Kame hugged him outside international departures at JFK, the way he'd told himself it was nothing like Sasha hugging him goodbye.

Jin should have known better, should have known he'd fuck it up again. Talents run to less than 1% of the population. Who'd want to sync a talent when you could have your pick of everybody else?


	7. Chapter 7

-2009-

Jin gets into Ex after five in the morning, sending Ben to scout the floor and Jerry with their drink orders. He finds Ryo and Pi, easy, and Maru, Koki and Junno drowning in women, only some of them theirs. Jin doesn't expect to find Ueda. He's a lot happier these days, more sure, but he's still usually wherever they've set up the dungeons tonight.

Ben comes back saying he's spotted Ran and Jelly, but not Kame. Jin goes out to investigate.

Jin can't find Kame, either, which was strange, because Ran and Jelly were rolling and snapping in co-ordination you didn't get any other way. You didn't need of line of sight, not technically, but that was a trick for a job, not a crowded dance floor, where you needed to keep more than your own limbs from slamming into other people.

Jin watches Kame's girls dance, wondering why Kame wasn't with them. Jin didn't sleep with all his guys, just the ones where it sort of happened, where the feeling was right. But dancing, dancing with someone who wanted you moving them, that was why Jin contracted, again and again, for that feeling.

Jin counts the beat, and counts their moves. He can't copy them the way Kame can; it's not Jin's thing. But he can follow patterns.

It's Ran, Jin realises. It's Ran moving Jelly. She's got to be like Sasha, just trying not to look it.

Jin wades in, as close as he can, stepping between bodies. He grabs both of them with gesture of his hands, and drags them out.

"Does Kamenashi-san need us?" Ran asks, more polite than Jelly's: "What do you think Kamenashi-san will say when he hears you're trying to sync us?"

Jin leans in, even though the bass beat thumping has them all lip-reading.

"What do I think he'll say when I tell him you're syncing each other?"

\---

Kame hears someone moving around below, back down the fire escape Kame just climbed. It's rickety, rust coming off on Kame's hands. This is what you get with having your nightclub in abandoned warehouses. Kame jumps down from the pipe he was sitting on, and picks his way back across to the edge, leaning down between the two stone eagles.

It's a guy, Kame thinks, from the shoulders, but it's too dark to see much else. Maybe it's something residual from before, when he caught Jin's practice, but something about the silhouette makes him hope.

"Hey!" Kame calls down. "Jin?"

Jin looks up, black brim of his fedora stark against pale skin, black hair. Kame can't read his expression, but Jin does take the hand that Kame offers, grip strong, to help Jin pull up onto the roof.

"It's cold up here," Jin says. He's rubbing his hands down his arms. It makes Kame stare at Jin's delicate wrists. He was just holding Jin's hand. He needs help.

"Hey, can I bum a cigarette?"

"Ah, yeah."

Kame lights Jin up, and for several moments, they just stand there, on the roof, smoking.

"So, uh, you got new guys," Kame says.

"Ben and Jerry. Jerry's the one with more tattoos." Jin says they're still dancing downstairs. They're both Americans, working visas, but the sort of contracts they make don't mean much to immigration. They'll only be able to stay with Jin so long before they have to go back.

Kame asks how long they've got.

Two months for Ben, three months for Jerry. When Kame says Jin's contracted's name, it sounds like Jelly.

"Have you ever thought of contracting a woman?" Kame asks.

Jin shakes his head.

"Junno always contracts with guys, too, though I'm pretty sure he only dates girls."

"He dates Rena. She's got him whipped."

They both laugh at that.

"I asked him about it once. He said he thinks it's weirder to be moving as a woman when he's not one."

"Not a problem I've ever worried about," Jin says. "I just prefer guys."

Jin's lips and eyelids look like they're shimmering with the same colour, though in the night, Kame can't tell if it's a bronze or a steel. His hair is reaching his shoulders, dark again, and looking so soft.

"Well, I prefer talents, and but I don't find as many women admitting they've got talent, especially in Japan. And two talents, that's hard to work. Who does what, you know?"

Kame wishes he could knock Jin's sunglasses off as easily as he could touch his own nose. He could, if he dared. Kame keeps his hands down.

"Like with two guys?" He asks.

"Touché."

"Don't you ever wish-- I really don't mean this to be offensive, it's just I've been wondering a lot myself lately..." Kame trails off. He and Jin used to talk about everything, but that was then and this is now.

"Do I wish--?" Jin prompts.

"Wouldn't you rather be normal?"

"I'd rather be me," Jin says. "It's complicated, but I'm me. And, anyway, you've got girls."

Kame can't suppress a bitter laugh. "I'm a pervert. You know that."

"If you think having a lesbian harem makes you a pervert, Kame, you need to go back downstairs and see what else people are doing on that dance floor."

"Jelly only likes women. Ran's... fine with both," Kame says, because facts are something that keeps the tide of poison down inside of him.

"We sync, and that's-- good, but I don't sleep with them. Ran found Jelly, introduced us. Ran's got some talent, but she can do more working with me."

"So, who do you sleep with?" Jin asks. "Um-- just-- fuck. Don't answer that."

"I only get off on syncing people. So, I have the work. I have my right hand. It's good. It works. I have contracts with Ran and Jelly, so I know I'm still controlling the talent, it's not controlling me. I haven't gone crazy and started forcing anyone."

Sometimes Kame can piggyback the way Ran and Jelly feel, their pleasure, when he's helped them having fun together, but Kame doesn't think he needs to be any lower in Jin's eyes.

"Kame-- I-- uh--"

Kame glances at Jin and has to look away. Disgust, he thinks he could handle better than Jin's pity.

"I don't think you'd force anybody, not unless it was work. You've never forced me."

"You don't remember in New York?"

"Maybe... maybe I made you sync me, ever think of that?"

"Still think you're stronger?" Kame asks.

"I know I'm stronger," Jin says, making a gesture that makes Kame flick his smouldering cigarette butt off the roof. "It'd burnt to nothing anyway."

It's just a touch of Jin's talent, and then it's gone, but then Kame can feel the tide of his own talent reaching up, wanting to chase Jin's fading touch and take him over. Kame presses his teeth into his lip, and then it's only manageable.

When Kame was young, he thought that Johnny isolated them from anyone outside the company because they were dangers to their families, talents without training. Now Kame knows that old pathways are strong pathways, harder to defend. Jin's the first person Kame ever synced, throwing that baseball at the testing. Jin's the last person Kame would ever want to hurt, but he can't even protect Jin from himself.

"I'm going back down," Kame says. He jumps down onto the fire escape.

"Tell your Jelly to keep her claws out of me," Jin says.

Kame turns back to Jin. "Is that how you knew I was up here?"

"How did you know I was the one climbing up?" Jin asks, turning question for question. When Kame doesn't answer, Jin shrugs, and walks further away from edge, vanishing from sight. "Yeah, who else would be dumb enough to climb up here, right? Thanks for the light, Kame. See you around."

\---

Back on the floor, Jin finds Ben and Jerry and a pina colada that's way too warm to even think about drinking.

"Kamenashi's been watching us," Jerry says. "And I don't think he's looking for us, if you catch my drift."

Kame's on the dance floor, back between Ran and Jelly, hips and shoulders fluid. He's stripped his jacket off somewhere, bare muscled arms and a black singlet. The song changes, a blending shift of beat, and Kame hits a pose: stop. Kame and his girls go off the floor, towards the bar-vans, not the VIP section. Jin wishes he could hear what they're saying to each other.

"You want another drink?" Ben asks.

"Yeah, but I'll get it myself."

Even VIP, Kame can't cut the line if he doesn't join the line. Jin walks up behind them to see Jelly stamp her foot and to hear her say: "oh, just get laid." Kame stumbles backwards, jerky, and Ran only remembers to hold her hands out like she physically pushed Kame a second too late.

Kame turns as he finds his feet, going stiff in Jin's arms once he realises who caught him. Over Kame's shoulder, Jin can see Ran and Jelly hi-five each other and drift back to the dance floor. They wave as they go, leaving Jin alone with Kame.

"I'm sorry, they think they're funny."

When Kame looks at Jin, he's got that bland expression on his face, the "Akanishi is my colleague and I am a professional" mask. Jin's sick of being such a fucking coward. He's sick of it from both of them.

"There's something I should have told you on the roof," Jin starts. "No, I should've told you in New York."

"Jin--"

"Please, just-- just let me say this, ok? I met this girl in LA. And, fuck, you know I've never gone for girls, but there was something about her. Something I couldn't resist."

"She's a talent, like your Ran, but stronger. We did stuff. She _pushed_ me, that's what they call it over there. And I loved it, fuck, I loved it so much, I couldn't stop myself making her sync me. I'd know if I did that to you."

"If you-- what?" Confused is a better look on Kame than unfeeling and professional, but it's not high up on Jin's list of expressions Kame could have when he looks at Jin.

"I said pretend. I wanted you to do it for real. But I didn't want you to think I was weak. You hate talents who sync."

"I don't... I don't like being synced myself," Kame says, and Jin feels Kame's body softening against his. "Jin, you-- you didn't block me?"

"Kame, I just wanted you in, I wanted to feel you moving me so bad. I want that with you. I trust you."

Jin's face feels like it's blazing, some horrible-wonderful mix of embarrassment and arousal-- because Kame hasn't said anything, hasn't said yes, but he doesn't look confused anymore. He looks like he's thinking, planning, and fuck, it's hot.

"I've always thought I didn't have enough control," Kame says. "Jelly says the problem is I have too much."

"Finally something we agree on."

"I still want you, Jin," Kame says, his voice rough. "I still think about having you. That night, what I would have done, if I hadn't stopped."

"I want you. I pick fights with your girls because I can't contract with you."

That makes Kame's eyes go dark, makes him surge forward against Jin. Kame takes Jin's mouth as he takes Jin's body, cool water filling Jin up, places in him that recognise Kame, like dry river beds filling after a drought. They wash away all the white noise in Jin's head, all the worries that he can't have this, that Kame doesn't want this. Jin's own body's not distant, just out of his control, the feel of Kame's lips, his hands spanning Jin's waist, Kame's waist under Jin's hands, the thrum of want, want, want, pushing them together like mirror images.

"Jin," Kame says, when he parts them so that they can breathe. "You want that? You do want that?"

Words are hard coming out of sync, and Jin's not there yet. He can wrap his arms more tightly around Kame, but it might not be his impulse. He doesn't care. If Jin had to control his own legs right now, he wouldn't still be standing.

"I think we're starting to become a floor show," Kame says, the tilt to his eyebrows telling Jin just how much Kame minds that. Jin doesn't look to see who is watching because then Kame is kissing him again, slow, slow as he's pulling his control back, a tease and a promise.

"I want you. I want that with you," the words tumble out of Jin's mouth as soon as he can think enough to string them together, a whisper purring against Kame's lips.

"Come home with me?" Kame asks.

"Only if you promise not to make me do anything _too_ stupid."

Linking Jin's pinky with his, Kame lifts their hands and presses his lips to the veins on the inside of Jin's wrist.

"Promise."

**Author's Note:**

> You can also comment at my [DW](http://threewalls.dreamwidth.org/150616.html) or on my [LJ](http://threewalls.livejournal.com/346506.html).


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